This paper presents findings of a qualitative inquiry into international students' experiences and perceptions of their language use in an English-medium international university in multilingual Hong Kong, with particular attention to the use of English as a lingua franca (ELF) in relation to other languages. Based on data collected from in-depth interviews with a group of international students, the study found that the participants embraced a pluralistic conceptualisation of ELF. While they emphasised the importance of ELF for their academic and social integration in the university, the perceived resistance against the use of ELF by local students means that the language norms operating in the university cannot be pre-determined. It was also found that the participants expressed monolingual ideologies with respect to the use of ELF as a result of their concerns about social exclusion and linguistic disadvantage. Meanwhile, multilingual language practices and multilingual ideologies in relation to the use of ELF were also found in the participants' accounts of language experiences and perceptions. The findings also point to the tensions arising from the language choice between ELF and the local language, as well as the co-existence of contradictory language ideologies concerning monolingualism/multilingualism in the international university context.
[Copyright of Language Culture and Curriculum is the property of Routledge.]

This study explores how master's students perceive their learning experiences and build their identities as postgraduate learners. It also investigates how these students' perceptions affect their aspirations regarding academic careers. By applying the Community of Practice (CoP) framework, this study focuses on three dimensions of master's students' experience; community, practice and identity. Seventy master's students from one research-intensive university in Hong Kong were interviewed regarding motivations for doing a master's degree and reflections on learning. The interview results showed that master's students build their communities partly around shared academic interests. However, the boundaries of these communities are loose and flexible, due to the nature of master's programmes with their short periods of study and large numbers of part-time students. The study also showed how master's students develop their knowledge and skills through doing research and how they evaluate the prospect of becoming an academic.
[Copyright of Studies in Higher Education is the property of Routledge.]

1965至1985年間，香港高等教育的發展相當緩慢，只有不足5%的適齡青年可升讀由大學教育資助委員會資助的大學學位課程，及至20世紀80年代中起，大學學位開始大量增加，進入大學的適齡人口百分比提升至18%。2000年，香港特別行政區行政長官更進一步提出要在十年內令香港高等教育的普及率達到60%。由2000–2001至2005–2006學年，高等教育參與率已增加至超過60%。本文探討在香港高等教育擴張後期，中學生對升讀高等教育期望的變化。本文研究數據來自2009年和2012年的學生能力國際評估計劃（以下簡稱PISA）。2009年香港的PISA調查在該年5至6月間進行，而2012年的調查則在該年4至5月間進行。本研究嘗試探索以下四個範疇：（1）學生的教育期望在兩次調查期間（2009至2012年）的變化；（2）學生的家庭社經背景與教育期望間的關係；（3）學生能力與教育期望間的關係；（4）家庭社經背景與學生能力等因素對學生期望升讀大學的相對影響程度。From 1965 to 1985, the development of higher education was very slow in Hong Kong. Less than 5% of age-eligible adolescents were admitted to UGC-funded university degree program. However, since the mid-1980s, there has been an expansion of university places and the university admission rate has increased to 18% of the age-eligible population. In 2000, the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region proposed that the admission rate of higher education be increased to 60% within ten years. As a consequence, the participation rate of higher education was increased to over 60% from the school year 2000–2001 to 2005–2006. This article focuses on the change in expectation for pursuing higher education of Hong Kong secondary school students during the post-massification of Hong Kong higher education.The data of this article originates from two cycles of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) — PISA 2009 and PISA 2012. PISA 2009 in Hong Kong was conducted from May to June 2009, while PISA 2012 was conducted from April to May 2012. This article attempts to investigate the following four areas: (1) the changes in students’ educational expectation during 2009 to 2012; (2) the relationship between students’ family socioeconomic background and their educational expectation; (3) the relationship between students’ ability and their educational expectation; (4) the relative impact of family socioeconomic background and students’ ability on their educational expectation toward the pursuit of university education. Copyright © 2009

The general university requirements (GUR) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) is an integral part of the new 4-year undergraduate curriculum. To evaluate GUR, a longitudinal case study involving 42 cases from different faculties/schools was conducted, with several interviews conducted with the informants over time. The present article is to report the findings of the second year evaluation. Three major observations on students' views about the effectiveness of GUR study were generated from the study, including 1) broadened horizons; 2) increased awareness of the connection between GUR study and all-round development and 3) urge of linking GUR components with one's profession. The longitudinal case study findings suggest that students generally had fruitful learning experiences in GUR study. This study helps to paint a more complete picture of students' views toward GUR and their personal development.
[Copyright of International Journal of Child and Adolescent Health is the property of Nova Science Publishers, Inc.]

Globalisation has facilitated massive flows of immigrant students of diverse backgrounds into schools. These developments intensify concerns about immigrant youth's mobility and belongingness, and about the capacity of schools to integrate them into receiving societies. However, the diverse forms, experiences and effects of young schoolchildren's educational mobilities on belongingness are under-researched. This study addresses this gap by examining the links between mobility, belongingness and schooling experiences of 417 Chinese cross-border students (CBS). These students are permanent residents of Hong Kong but live on the mainland and travel across the border to school every day. A structural equation model shows that some dimensions of schooling experiences, notably better relations with local peers and more extracurricular school-based activities in Hong Kong, have stronger links to CBS's belongingness than students' personal and family characteristics and their hours on cross-border commuting. The implications of the findings, both at theoretical level and for enhancing young mobile child migrants' belongingness, are discussed. Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, this study aims to examine the relationship between the personal, communal, environmental, and transcendental domains of spiritual well-being of university students in Hong Kong and their academic performance measured by Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA). The study is guided by two research questions. Research Question One: What are the relationships between university students’ spiritual well-being and their academic performance as measured by CGPA?Research Question Two: If there are any relationships between university students’ spiritual well-being and their academic performance, how are the background demographic variables, including major discipline, family socio-economic status and religious beliefs related to spiritual well-being and academic performance?The quantitative part of the study consists of a survey that collects data from a random sample of 1,130 Year 2 and Year 3 students from three universities in Hong Kong. The questionnaire used is adapted from the Spiritual Health And Life-Orientation Measure (SHALOM) developed by John Fisher. The quantitative findings indicate a moderate positive relationship between the spiritual well-being of the respondents and their academic performance; the results also demonstrate that students’ academic performance corresponds with their levels of spiritual well-being. The qualitative part of the study is comprised of 11 focus group discussions. The findings of this support the quantitative findings and contribute to the exploration of the background variables that mediate the abovementioned positive relationship. The study also involves data triangulation.The findings suggest that the resulting positive relationship can be explained by three demographic features, namely, family social-economic status, major disciplines, and religious beliefs. Thus, these demographic features are used to delineate and analyze the positive relationship and the various patterns of the relationship

自 2000 年課程改革以來，教育局提倡幫助學生達至全人發展的目標和發展終身學習的能力，以「全方位學習」的概念，鼓勵把學習空間從課室拓展到其他環境，推展一系列的「體驗式學習」，「其他學習經歷」便是以此理念推行的一個高中課程組成部份，約佔總課時百分之十至十五。體驗式學習並不是新猷，是世界各地教育的主要教學模式之一。有別於正規課堂學習，體驗式學習着重利用多樣化的環境和社區資源，配合時、地、人各方面所組成的學習情境，達至一個「體驗式學習循環」，需包括具體體驗(Concrete experience)、觀察及反省(Observation & reflection)、總結體驗(Forming abstract concepts)及實踐應用(Testing in new situations)。由於體驗式學習需要不同的資源投入，校本情況不一。為使每一位學生尤其是基層學生得到公平的學習機會，「大教育平台」積極為中學提供體驗式學習活動並有意檢討體驗式學習在香港推行的成效。香港政策研究所教育政策研究中心得到大教育平台資助，於 2017 年 7 月至 2018年 9 月期間，邀請全港五間中學作一年的追蹤研究，研究分別以問卷調查及學生訪談形式進行。問卷調查利用教育局的情意及社交表現評估套件(第二版)，加上企業精神、STEM 技能、人文價值的 APASO+問卷，及活動檢討問卷，分別於 2016/17 學年末及2017/18 學年初收集，共收到 414 個有效回應，了解學生在情意及社交表現的變化。學生訪談以小組及個人形式進行，深入探討學生對「體驗式學習」的感受及意見。Since the curriculum reform in 2000, the Education Bureau has been advocating to help student achieve whole-person development and lifelong learning. The concept of Life-wide learning encourages the extension of learning from the classroom to social environment through a series of experiential learning, Other Learning Experience (OLE) in the senior secondary curriculum, which accounts for 10-15% of total class hours, is one of the examples. Experiential learning is not a recent term, but one of the major teaching models in the world. Apart from formal learning in the classroom, experiential learning emphasizes using diversified environment and community resources to reach an experiential learning circle, including concrete experience, observation and reflection, concluding abstract concept and practical application. As experiential learning requires different resources input and school-based situations are varied, Big Education Platform, which actively provides experiential learning for secondary schools in Hong Kong, has the aim to review the effectiveness of these activities, on the participating students. Hong Kong Policy Research Institute was funded by Big Education Platform to conduct an impact study in five secondary schools, including a questionnaires survey and student focus group discussion

Drawing on two surveys conducted before and after the 2014 Umbrella Movement, this paper discusses the dynamics of how Hong Kong (HK) university students constructed their own ideals of citizenship. The former survey reveals that HK university students’ ideas about citizenship were mainly associated with their visceral sense of HK belonging. They aspired to social movements as a site for learning and exercising citizenship. However, the findings of the later survey show that students’ sense of HK pride, identity, attachment, and interest in voting were in decline. Such changes were partially due to their feeling of political exclusion and disappointment, and partially due to their unpreparedness to make informed decisions or judgement in the contested political sphere. I argue that students’ experiences mirrored unresolved problems in HK politics and citizenship education, and have implications for the civic role of HK higher education alongside the global wave of youth activism. Copyirght © 2019 British Association for International and Comparative Education.

Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted with ethnically Chinese adolescents enrolled into a school-based mentoring programme at a private secondary school in Hong Kong. Interview data were analysed thematically and two themes developed: 'experiencing mentoring' and 'experiencing the mentor'. The mentees, although initially sceptical about mentoring, were surprised by its helpfulness. Through the development of an informal and collaborative relationship in which students experienced their mentor as a trustworthy, mature and objective adult, students found an important source of emotional support and practical help which benefited their academic work. Students' experience was influenced by their mentors' role in the school, length of service and gender match. School-based mentoring programmes in a Hong Kong context have the potential to offer emotional and academic support to students. Cultural factors may have an impact on the experience of mentoring which schools should take into account when setting up such programmes.
[Copyright of Asia-Pacific Education Researcher is the property of Springer.]

The success of East Asian school education in general, and in mathematics education in particular, has been an ongoing subject of research over the last few decades in the “West”, suggesting that no conclusive factor(s) underlying performance appears to have been identified yet. The phenomenon of the “paradox of the Chinese learner” remains, while OECD data indicates an absence of correlation between affective factors and performance. This paper reports on a research study that has been designed to explore the possible involvement — and significance — in student learning of the conative domain, since most if not all prior studies had focused only on the cognitive and affective domains. To this end, a validated questionnaire was administered to 1,505 students from primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong. The “What I Find Important (in My Mathematics Learning)” questionnaire collects data regarding student valuing in three ways: a 5-point Likert scale (64 items), semantic differential items (10 items), and an open-ended, scenario-stimulated response section (4 items). Principal component analysis and content analysis of collected questionnaire data suggest that Hong Kong students highly valued 11 attributes, namely word-problem skills, activities, practice, exploration, ICT, connections, process, feedback, explanation, control, and certainty. These values are interpreted from a sociocultural lens, with some of these associated with Confucian Heritage Culture values, but at the same time having interacted with cognitive and affective factors potentially to optimize student performance. Copyright © 2018 HKERA International Conference.